Far Away and Long Ago
by Ralph E. Silvering
Summary: The Force works in mysterious ways and the universe is both far larger and far smaller than we believe. Chapter 1: Bendu & Kanan Jarrus. Chapter 2: Ahsoka & Kanan. Chapter 3: Obi-Wan & Ahsoka. Chapter 4: Obi-Wan & Numa, and past Obi-Wan & Anakin. Chapter 5: Nash & Obi-Wan
1. Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Star Wars. A series of one-shots which may, or may not, connect with one another. Just scenes that I want to see, or character studies. Spoilers through "Rebels" and "Thrawn: Alliances."

Summary: The Force works in mysterious ways and the universe is both far larger and far smaller than we believe.

Notes: A scene from the Bendu's point of view after Kanan's death. Next up, Kanan talks with Ahsoka Tano.

Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight

The Bendu felt Kanan Jarrus die.

Of course, he would. With so few Jedi left, those that remained stood out like stars on a clear night.

But Jarrus' death had been…unexpected with surprising consequences. Instead of a little more darkness left in the wake of his passing, all the Bendu saw was light. A thousand strands of light led towards the blind Jedi at the moment of his death and a thousand branched away from him instead of ending, rippling outwards after he was gone; different, changed, clearer and more beautiful.

And at its center, a pivot around which one wheel of history turned perfectly, stood Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight.

The Bendu watched the light around the Jedi grow. He watched the woman, Hera, survive from his efforts and he followed her path through the Rebel Alliance and the Force sensitive child she would have.

He followed the boy, Ezra Bridger, as he became a Jedi Knight, the branching lines that led to the Imperial Thrawn's defeat, Ahsoka Tano's survival, and the planet Lothal's purification.

He watched the Mandalorians, the bright Sabine Wren and the fierce Bo-Katan Kryze, as they drove the Empire back.

He watched the Lasat warrior, Zeb, and his unerring path towards the Rebel spy, Kallus, and the rebuilding of the Lasat people.

He watched lines leading to Jedi he had never met and worlds he had never seen.

The course of history was changed at Lothal by what Kanan Jarrus did, by the moment he found, by the events he set in motion. And the future he created was the Will of the Force and immeasurably brighter than even the Bendu had foreseen.

He had seen Thrawn's defeat but not how it would come about. He had seen the Empire lose, the Sith destroyed at last, but not the first steps which would lead to their decline.

He had missed so much of the picture, yet truly the Force worked in marvelous ways and Kanan Jarrus had seen what he had not.

He had listened to the Force and heard its call. He had been where he needed to be, in the moment he had needed to be there. It had never been about him and what he wanted, but about how many lives he could change for the better through his actions.

When the last light from the dying star of a Jedi faded away in the Bendu's sight – ripples spreading out into the universe like waves on a still pond – he could still feel the Jedi's presence, echoes sounding long after he was gone.

A large echo – the howl of a wolf – resided still on Lothal, to guide the Padawan he had left behind.

The Bendu looked around him at the dark, silent landscape of Atollon. Things had been quiet since the Jedi – and his warmongering friends – had left.

The winds whispered through the caves and over the empty, dry ground. The spiders murmured and found and mated amongst themselves, unconcerned with the Bendu. The stars carried on their dance without him. In fact, the galaxy carried on without him.

It had been peaceful before the Jedi. It had felt right to watch the centuries turn and the same story repeat over and over. It did not matter if he intervened or not. But now, since the Jedi, the Bendu's existence felt…lonely.

The only time he had felt truly part of the Force in many years, part of that cosmic dance, was when he brought the storm to Rebels and Imperials alike and halted the Imperial Admiral's complete annihilation of Kanan Jarrus and his friends.

The Imperial Admiral was an interesting convergence in the Force – light and dark, friend and foe, past and future – and the Bendu had enjoyed the glimpse he had seen of the Admiral's fate. He would end where he began, as all living beings must, but which the Admiral feared.

But then the Admiral was gone, and Kanan Jarrus was gone, and the Bendu was alone. "I am the grey," he told himself again, as he once told Jarrus. "I am the balance, and I neither help nor hinder."

But the words seemed hollower than ever. He had felt pity and compassion floweing towards him from the Jedi when he had explained to the young blind man how balance worked, how the Force cared not for light or dark. Pity! From a being whose existence was a mere eyeblink to the Bendu, and whose kind had left the galaxy in darkness.

He neither helped nor hindered. He was both light and dark. He was the balance at the center.

' _I told myself the galaxy would go on with or without me_ ,' the Force whispered in the Jedi's voice.

' _But when I saw innocents suffering I couldn't just watch it all burn down around me_ ,' the wind insisted.

' _Some things are worth fighting for!'_ The spiders crackled as they formed a semi-circle around him, like a rowdy, carnivorous council meeting.

The Bendu roared and the sky rent apart with lightning. The spiders scattered, and the thunder rumbled the Bendu's displeasure. After the storm passed and Atollon gradually quieted again, the Bendu sighed.

What type of creature reached out beyond death to offer guidance to one who had last sought his destruction? The Bendu silently asked the Force.

"Kanan Jarrus. Jedi Knight," he said wryly, to the wind and the rain and caves. And the Force joined in echoes around his voice.

He remembered a Jedi Grand Master from long ago, weary from battle, ravaged by grief, and fierce as she stared calmly up at him. "Balance isn't good and evil in equal measure," she had said, knowing he was humoring her by listening, that he wouldn't take any of her words to heart, and trying anyway. "It is peace and freedom," she'd insisted, "with a little bit of danger and a little bit of struggle. It is looking outwards towards the lives around us and sometimes looking within us towards what we want and need. It is…" she'd flashed him a mischievous smile than, so at odds with her tired face, "mostly vegetables with a little bit of Braboli and a nice Ryborean gax to wash it down."

She had stood then to look up at him earnestly. "Balance is more complicated than standing in the middle."

She had left him then and he had never seen her again. But the ripples of her subsequent actions continued to flow outwards and he still saw her very presence all around him. She would have been proud of Kanan Jarrus.

The Bendu sighed. It had been many years, millenia, but perhaps – just _perhaps_ – he should seek answers beyond what he had always known? Perhaps he should see what had become of the galaxy in his absence? Or follow the purrgil to the edge of the unknown?

There was a faint stir of excitement inside him at the thought. "That's what comes of messing with Jedi," he grumbled to himself. "A longing for adventure. At my age." He shook his head as though to talk himself out of it. "Nothing good," he decided, even as he knew he was going…somewhere. "Nothing good at all," he finished severely.

But he was smiling even as he grumbled. And he had the strangest feeling the stars were laughing with him.


	2. The Apprentice

Summary: Ahsoka Tano was the first Jedi Kanan had seen since the Republic fell.

Notes: Kanan and Ahsoka talk alone for the first time. Takes place at the end of Rebels: Season 1. Kanan Jarrus POV. Some of the quotes towards the end are from Dave Filoni's scene between them which never made it into Rebels.

The Apprentice

Kanan couldn't keep his eyes off her.

He could feel Hera watching him, would catch a glimpse of her small smile out of the corner of his eye before she hastily schooled her expression to solemnity when he glanced at her. He tried not to let it bother him. He tried to take his eyes off of Ahsoka as well, aware it was creepy.

But he couldn't.

Ahsoka Tano was the first Jedi Kanan had seen since the Republic fell.

She was…she was…she felt like coming home.

Kanan had no idea how lonely he'd been, how much he had missed that constant feeling of light and warmth and…and… _family_ – how much he had been lost in the darkness of the galaxy until he felt her again.

Ahsoka Tano was definitely a Jedi Knight, no matter what she claimed. She felt centered, powerful and alive in the Force like Kanan hadn't felt since his Master. Moreover, she was Anakin Skywalker's Padawan. The Hero With No Fear. Kanan had spent years and years after the Republic was destroyed going over in his mind where each of the Jedi Generals had been, and how they could have survived.

Anakin Skywalker had been on Coruscant, with only half the usual strength of his battalion, the renowned and feared 501st. He had also been with either his Master, or his Padawan. Whatever had happened to him, he would have been unprepared…and alone.

"Where were you?" he blurted out. The first words he had spoken to her, apropos of nothing, and it was an accusation. He winced and fought the urge to look away from for the first time.

Ahsoka had been deep in conversation with Commander Sato and a hologram of Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan, but she looked up slowly at his words. Her big blue eyes blinked at him. She stood in a relaxed form of military rest, arms folded across her chest in a way he remembered from posters of Master Kenobi which were all over Coruscant during the Clone Wars. And her armor – grey, scuffed, utilitarian – also looked like General Kenobi's standard gear, covering her wrists and elbows, chest, knees and the front of her lower legs.

Then again, Ahsoka Tano had been Obi-Wan Kenobi's apprentice as well. Kenobi and Skywalker. The Team. Always together. There was nothing the two of them could not defeat.

She raised an eyebrow marking in the exact same way that Kanan remembered Master Kenobi doing and a sharp pain of loss dug between his ribs. He gripped his lightsaber hard enough to hurt, just to ground himself.

Ahsoka's smile was a kind as her warmth in the Force. "I was on Mandalore. Captain Rex and half of the 501st were placed under my command when Anakin and Obi-Wan were recalled back to Coruscant to save the Chancellor. Together with Bo-Katan Kryze and several of the Mandalorian Houses loyal to her, we were attempting to take back Sundari from Darth Maul. We had finally captured him when…" She trailed off, sadness flowing through her.

Order 66.

"And after?" he couldn't help but ask. It was a child's question, illogical and selfish. _Where were you when I needed you?_ Never mind that the adult Kanan knew that logically Ahsoka Tano would have had no way to find any Jedi who survived, no means to communicate with them, no possible way to prove that she wasn't leading them into a trap.

But he had been 12-years-old, alone and scared, and no one had ever found him.

Ahsoka's eyes were sad and her Force presence hummed with regret and compassion. Ezra, who had been smiling at Ahsoka since he first saw her, darted quick glances between them, opening his mouth to intervene when Hera shook her head at him.

Ahsoka rested a hand on the little astromech beside her – the same one he and his crew had returned to Senator Organa several months ago – and answered his question. "Senator Organa and Artoo here found me about two years later. I was trying to…help some people. And I brought a little too much attention to myself." She laughed ruefully, her silvery voice rippling, and underneath all her sadness and loss, Kana could feel the strength in her. "He offered me a job. A way to help others in this new galaxy. And I accepted."

Kanan remembered Master Obi-Wan's message – the one which had saved his life, the one which he had given the Jedi Master the idea for so many months before it had been needed, and the words of which were engraved inside him, played over and over again, a last bit of wisdom and advice and teaching from the family he had lost.

 _This message is a warning and a reminder for any surviving Jedi: trust in the Force. Do not return to the Temple. That time has passed…_

"Avoid Coruscant. Avoid detection."

Ahsoka's sharp flare of emotion widened Ezra's eyes, but she was smiling. "Be secret…but be strong. We will each be challenged…" She trailed off and swallowed roughly.

"…a new hope will emerge. May the Force be with you always," Kanan finished in a whisper.

Around them the bridge was silent. Senator Organa looked between Ahsoka and Kanan, Commander Sato simply looked confused, and Hera reached out to place a comforting hand on Kanan's shoulder. Ezra, standing stoutly by Kanan's side, seemed to be the only one who really understood the words they were saying to one another.

"Master Obi-Wan always knew the right words to say," Ahsoka offered at last, her smile a complicated amalgamation of love and melancholy, pride and uncertainty.

Kanan nodded and left the bridge.

The Rebels set up a small, temporary basecamp on the habitable planet of Garel. It was within the Lothal system and easy enough to launch attacks and raids on Ezra's homeworld. It seemed that Phoenix Squadron – the disparate cells who came together above Mustafar, and which would now be personally led by Ahsoka – would be focusing on the Lothal system in the near future, due to the large, unexplained Imperial presence in this sector.

Kanan watched from a distance as the initial set-up was complete, orders were given, and then Ahsoka wondered off across the gently-waving grasslands surrounding the base, probably in search of a quiet place to meditate. Hera came and leaned against the side of the fuselage he was currently standing next to.

"So…" she began, "you mind telling me why you're lurking over here?"

"I'm not lurking," Kanan insisted, not sounding as certain as he wanted to be.

"Uh huh." Hera clearly didn't believe him either.

Kanan sighed and watched as the tips of Ahsoka's montrals disappeared over the horizon. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked at last.

Hera didn't even deign that one with an answer, just waited for him to reach the right conclusion. At last, Kanan sighed again. "Because it was safer this way. Because it wasn't time yet." Quieter, more ashamed, he admitted, "Because I wasn't ready to be a Jedi."

For a short moment there was silence between them. Then –

"Chopper! Get back here you bucket of bolts!" Ezra howled in anger, darting out from somewhere in hot pursuit of Hera's menace of a droid. He was cackling as he rapidly wheeled past Kanan and Hera. Ezra passed them too, stopped, and then back-tracked a bit.

"Hey guys," he said, attempting nonchalance. Hera smothered a laugh and Kanan rolled his eyes. "Just don't destroy the base," he admonished. "Like the last time."

Ezra looked mildly abashed but not enough for Kanan's peace of mind. That last time he managed to explode their food supplies, which shouldn't have even been possible.

"Yup, got it. Later!"

And he was off again.

For a moment Kanan and Hera were silent, listening to the distant sounds of Ezra and Chopper causing chaos. "I wasn't ready until Ezra came along," Kanan said at last.

There was some sort of loud bang and then one of the starfighters started smoking. Shouting started and Kanan groaned. "Nope, I changed my mind. I'm still not ready."

Hera smiled and shook her head. She placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Go, love. Talk to her. I've got this covered." And then she strode away, shouting "Ezra Bridger!" in her best commanding voice. The green of her lekku shone in the sunlight and the soft sway of her hips was as enticing as her laughter when she turned the corner out of Kanan's sight and obviously saw what kind of mess Ezra and Chopper managed to make this time.

Kanan pulled his eyes away and looked down, realizing he had been running the fingers of his right hand absently over the hilt of his lightsaber. The worn metal felt familiar and cool in his hands, the kyber crystal humming reassuringly. He moved through the grasses, left hand skimming over their tickling tops as he moved up the hill and towards where he felt Ahsoka to be.

Several valleys away, he found her, hands on knees and her lightsabers placed on the ground before her. Around her the Force hummed with light and peace.

"Last time I sparred with you, you used one lightsaber, not two," he called to her.

She smiled as she opened her eyes and stood, picking up her 'sabers to stand and wait for him to reach her. "And defaulted to reverse grip," she said. "Anakin despaired of me."

She held out her weapons for him to look at. "But then Master Obi-Wan taught me jar'kai, as a way to compensate for the delay in striking when using reverse grip." Kanan admired the balance of the weapons, the smaller hilt of the shoto. He turned them on and was surprised by the pure white blades, but the crystals sang a beautiful, haunting song and there was only light in them. "Of course," Ahsoka continued ruefully, "Anakin continued to drill me in fighting with a normal grip."

He handed the weapons back to her. Could feel her studying his face. "Does anyone know your true name, Caleb?" she asked gently, and he almost cursed himself for thinking that she would have forgotten him, even though they were only distantly acquainted.

Ahsoka Tano had been a child prodigy, the same as Anakin Skywalker; one of the best to come out of the Jedi Temple. She would not have forgotten a Jedi she crossed blades with. "Hera," he admitted.

"Good," Ahsoka said. His green eyes met her blue and he watched as her lips quirked in a mischievous smile. "Are you up for a little sparring?" she asked, not even waiting for his answer but moving several yards away and sanding in a ready position. "I want to see if you've learned any new tricks since last we fought."

Kanan sighed and ignited his blade. Blue faced off against twin silvery-white. This was going to end badly.

Five times they stood across from one another and began their match, and five times Kanan ended up resoundingly defeated in the span of ten seconds or less. The last time ended with Ahsoka Force-shoving him away until he flew through the air and landed hard in the grasses around their small clearing.

He should have landed on his feet. Sloppy.

Ahsoka came over and stared down at him. There was no triumph on her face, just understanding and a gentle smile of commiseration. "Even at a young age you were gifted with a lightsaber. But without training and discipline, those skills fade."

"So, it seems." Kanan got to his feet and stared at his lightsaber, unlit, in his right hand. "I haven't had to fight with my lightsaber very often. For a while, I chose not to. I was…" He trailed off, shame filling him. He had been a coward.

"You were afraid to use it," Ahsoka said softly. Then, "I understand."

He glanced up at her quickly, and she did understand. He took a deep breath. "I've been teaching Ezra as best I can. I want him to be the Jedi I'm not, that I couldn't be." He swallowed quickly, planning on telling her that he didn't deserve the lightsaber he'd placed in her hands, that he wasn't qualified to teach Ezra, especially with her here. She was _actually_ a Jedi.

Ahsoka shook her head firmly and handed the lightsaber back to him. She closed his fingers over the hilt. "And I want you to be the Jedi that you are," she told him.

She sounded…proud. Her Force presence washed over him, as it had since the moment she came down that ladder and stood before them as Fulcrum. He and Ezra were not alone. Together, they were Jedi. He nodded and went to hook his lightsaber back on his belt.

Ahsoka's hand forestalled him. "Maybe…just a bit more practice," she said.

Kanan flushed with embarrassment.

"Where Ezra can't see," she continued, winking at him.

Kanan playfully grimaced at her. "Yes, Master," he intoned mockingly.

Ahsoka shoved him.

Notes: Next, for Ahsoka's first mission with the fledgling Rebellion, Bail Organa sends her and Artoo to meet an old friend on Tatooine.


	3. The Wizard of the Wastes

Summary: For Ahsoka's first mission with the fledgling Rebellion, Bail Organa sends her and Artoo to meet an old friend on Tatooine.

Notes: Ahsoka and Obi-Wan's first meeting after 'Revenge of the Sith'. Ahsoka Tano POV.

The Wizard of the Wastes

A young Togruta female known as Fulcrum slouched in her seat, in a darkened corner of the Cantina, and did her best to remain inconspicuous. This place really was unsavory. She'd thought, from Bail's explanation of her mission and the memories of the one-time she'd been on this planet, that she'd have to do her best not to be noticed as a Jedi. Former Jedi.

Now, she was thinking that she had to do her best not to be noticed as young and female and marginally attractive.

That's what came of visiting a planet controlled by the Hutts.

Ahsoka sighed and slouched down even further, grateful for the hood which concealed her features. She grimaced as her sleeve stuck in something congealed onto the table and eyed the drink the bartender brought her with no small amount of suspicion. The bartender – a human male who looked grizzled enough and jumpy enough to have fought in the Clone Wars – seemed faintly embarrassed.

"You sure you don't want to go somewhere else?" he asked her gruffly.

Artoo, staying as quiet as possible by her side, beeped gently and swiveled his domed head to take in the other patrons of this over-crowded, seedy place once more.

"I'm fine," Ahsoka reassured him, placing a hand on Artoo's dome and trying to smile up at the bartender. She hadn't found much to smile at in the past couple of years and the expression required muscles not often used. "Thank you for letting me bring my droid in here with me," she said sincerely.

The man grunted and eyed Artoo with disfavor. "Droids are all thieving traitors," he opined belligerently, confirming Ahsoka's suspicions that he had fought against the CID – probably in one of the nastier engagements in the Clone Wars. "But seeing as how you're otherwise alone…" he moved his disapproving eyes back up to her "…and weaponless…" He trailed off and shrugged, seeming to try and peer beneath her cloak for a blaster of some kind.

Ahsoka bit back her automatic response of, 'No Jedi is weaponless,' and was slightly glad that she'd left her lightsabers hidden on her ship. A Clone Wars veteran would undoubtedly recognize a lightsaber when he saw one, and that would bring about more questions than she wanted to answer. Get in, get out. That was her motto.

"I'll be alright," she told him again, trying to sound confident. In truth, Ahsoka didn't like anything about Tatooine from what she had seen of it, and she had no idea how Bail even had a contact all the way out here, let alone why he needed one. This dust-strewn dung-heap was so remote that not even the Empire seemed to be bothering with it very much.

In fact, some of the locals seemed to be under the impression that there was still a Republic.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," the bartender said ominously, before limping off back behind the counter. Several of the other patrons shouted new orders at him as he went.

Ahsoka took another look around her for good measure. Not much had changed in the past several minutes. The all-Bith band played something light and catchy in the corner, the bar was lined with notorious criminals, smugglers and spice runners from all over the Outer Rim, and the darkened booths were filled with spies, assassins and those running from Imperial justice.

Like herself.

She wished, for the ninth time since leaving the spaceport, that she had her lightsabers without her. Jedi or not, she felt naked without them.

Artoo whistled comfortingly by her side. He sounded almost excited. Ahsoka grunted. "That makes one of us," she told him.

Artoo mysteriously suggested that that was because he knew things that she did not.

"Oh yeah? And what might that be?"

His smug beep caused her to scowl at him.

"You're becoming even worse in your old age," she informed him, bemused but also vaguely amused at his behavior.

 _Takes one to know one_ , he shot back, and she forbore to argue any further, having the sneaking feeling that she was being soundly beaten by a droid.

She took a sip of the Bantha mild, a local, non-alcoholic specialty apparently, and almost gagged. Ugh, gross.

Artoo released a series of beeps denoting laughter.

"I'm sure the oil in Mos Eisley isn't any better than the milk," she murmured absently. The Force had whispered strangely for a moment, almost swelling in intensity. She had missed something.

Something dangerous? She looked around again but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. A humanoid figure in a worn cloak, probably male from the walk, had entered the cantina. Ahsoka couldn't see his face under the hood of his garment, but it was the type of thing a vagabond would wear around her, she'd noticed, so she only paid him a bit of attention as he moved through the crowd towards the bar and hailed the attention of the surly bartender.

Once more Ahsoka puzzled through Bail's strangely-suppressed excitement when he'd assigned her this mission. He wouldn't meet her eyes as he'd handed over the coordinates and from anyone else she would have found this suspicious, suspected them of leading a wanted Jedi fugitive into a trap, but not from Bail, not from Padmé Amidala's friend.

And besides, he had sent Artooie with her. It almost felt like old times.

Ahsoka's attention snapped back to the vagabond at the bar when she finally placed what was so familiar about his walk. The way that hooded face canvased the room, the relaxed-but-completely-aware-of-his-surroundings stance as he stood talking to the bartender, the hand held casually at his belt, ready to draw; all pointed towards military training.

Soldier not partisan or rebel.

Ahsoka's instincts have never led her wrong, and as the man turns at the bartender's direction, begins to make his way over to her, she readies herself for a fight.

And then all at once he stops dead, in the middle of the cantina, hooded face staring at Ahsoka and Artoo. People flow around him as he stands unmoving, and Ahsoka can feel a flare of shock burn through the Force before it suddenly vanishes as though the man is…shielding.

Artoo starts beeping frantically, moving from side to side in his excitement, and the man starts towards them again, faster than before. She realizes that the light from the bar is perfectly showcasing her face but that his is still in shadow, a darker shadow perhaps denoting a beard.

Ahsoka only has time to register his grace, the way his movements all seem to flow like a dance, which she had last seen from…

…and then he was before her, a pale hand reaching out to gently touch Artoo's blue-domed head in greeting. And he was exactly the right height, and Artoo was whistling softly in return, and the man was reaching up, pushing back his hood to reveal the face of…

…Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

"Hello there," his Coruscant-accented voice lilted over the background noise. His blue-grey eyes looked like they had seen far too much of sadness and grief lately, but the little smile lurking at the corner of his lips was all Master Obi-Wan, acknowledging the absurdity of words in a situation like this, including her in on the joke.

Ahsoka stared, eyes wide, drinking in the sight of him and unable to believe... how had she not known, not felt him? ...how was he here –

He was here. He was _here_. She inhaled sharply enough that it hurt.

His hands twitched, as though to reach out towards her, and suddenly Ahsoka was moving. Up off the curved bench, laughing and crying at the same time as she threw herself into Master Obi-Wan's arms and held on tight.

He caught her in his arms with a quiet 'oomph' for she was as tall as him now, and his arms went around her instantly, warm and safe. And now she could feel him in the Force again – _warmth, comfort, family, Master_ – and she was still crying, she realized. His beard prickled against her skin and he smelled clean like soap, and salty like the desert and underneath that was the spicy scent of his favorite brand of tea.

He hadn't changed. He hadn't changed _at all._

She was crying now, quietly, and she could feel Artoo's mechanical arm extending to poke her gently – in comfort, she supposed – in the leg. She was also fairly sure one tip of her montrals had almost just jabbed Master Obi-Wan in the eye. "Sorry," she muttered, letting go abruptly when she remembered how uncomfortable he always was at physical displays of affection. She had only ever seen him at ease with casual touching around Anakin – once or twice with Padmé – and Ahsoka had never actually hugged him before.

He didn't let her go far, keeping her hand in his as he reached out and placed his other hand gently on her tear-streaked face.

She knew they were making a bit of a scene, that several of the tables around them were watching their reunion out of the corner of their eyes, but she didn't really care. Master Obi-Wan's eyes were filled with tears and she had never seen him cry before. "I am…so happy you're safe, little one," he said, stumbling over the words in a way totally uncharacteristic of him, and telling Ahsoka more than anything else, how much he had feared her death.

She had always known that he loved her, had never needed the words from him like Anakin always seemed to…

She realized his hand was trembling in hers.

She took a deep breath, centered herself as well as she could, and tugged him over to her table. They sat down across from one another, Ahsoka refusing to relinquish his hand. It had been so long. She had thought him dead for years. The last she had known of him had been the message he had sent from the Temple. He had gone back to Coruscant after the Clones turned on them. She had always believed Master Obi-Wan to be invincible, so his survival against General Grievous and then his own entire Clone Battalion hadn't surprised her.

And of course, he had gone back to Coruscant. Anakin had been there. And the children had been there, the younglings. Master Obi-Wan would never have left them.

"And…Anakin?" she couldn't help but whisper, knowing already what the answer must be. She couldn't feel her Master in the Force and Master Obi-Wan's face, lined in grief, spoke plainly enough. The sharp, visceral flare of pain which flowed into the Force and was sharp enough to cause her to cry out was all the answer she needed.

"I'm so sorry," she said, tightening her hand in his, trying to offer what comfort she could and knowing it was far too little. Obi-Wan and Anakin had been closer than brothers, known each other more intimately than lovers, and bickered like an old married couple. They were two sides of the same coin; she had never thought the day would come when she would see one without the other.

"And I'm sorry as well, Ahsoka," Obi-Wan said, and what he had to be sorry for she couldn't even imagine. She knew he would have done all that he could. She shook her head stubbornly, held on tight enough that she was worried she might hurt him, but he didn't let out a single sound of protest.

Anakin Skywalker was gone. He was one with the Force now. She only hoped that one day, somewhere, somehow, beyond time, the Force would bring them back together again.

For now, she was just grateful Master Obi-Wan was still here with her.

After a minute or two, while Artoo swiveled his head between them both like a pendulum, the little droid beeped a question. _Are you going to tell her?_

Master Obi-Wan, surprisingly, laughed.

"Master?" Ahsoka asked, glancing between them both and vaguely wondering if Bail, Obi-Wan and Artoo were involved in a conspiracy against her.

"I suppose that's why Bail sent her," he murmured, speaking to the astromech and not Ahsoka. "Before he said anything." A hint of his old mischief, a spark in those weary eyes, lightened Ahsoka's heart. "Should we tell her?" Master Obi-Wan stage-whispered to Artoo. "Is she trustworthy enough?"

"Hey!" Ahsoka protested, pretending to be offended.

Master Obi-Wan's eyes twinkled at her and Artoo muttered something rude about humans. "Oh, alright, I suppose it's fine." He reached over and tugged Ahsoka's hood back over her montrals.

"Come, there's something I have to tell you, Ahsoka, and – more importantly – someone I want to introduce you to." As they went moved towards the exit, Obi-Wan using a subtle brush of the Force to cause those nearest them to become uninterested in their movements, Ahsoka slipped her arm through his, irrationally afraid that if she lost him, even for a moment, he would vanish from her sight like a mirage in a desert.

She was unsure at the moment whether she was dreaming, and if the dream was Master Obi-Wan returned to her, or if it was the past few years she spent running – alone and afraid – before Artoo and Bail led her back to him.

Master Obi-Wan led her out into the bright, afternoon sunlight. The hubbub of Mos Eisley swirled around her in a myriad of colors and smells, sounds and feelings in the Force.

"When I tell you that the situation I now find myself in is entirely Anakin's fault, I'm sure you won't be surprised," Master Obi-Wan was saying, voice almost entirely devoid of bitterness, and with almost the usual amount of fond exasperation in it for Anakin's antics that she was used to.

He shot her a teasing look. "It is definitely a Skywalker problem," he intoned dryly.

Behind them Artoo cackled.

"Oh dear," Ahsoka said, and she was very definitely smiling.

Notes: Next, Obi-Wan has only been on Tatooine for a month before his house is robbed. The thieves take the old wooden trunk where he'd placed Anakin's lightsaber and Ahsoka's Padawan beads. A Jedi shouldn't need attachments, but Obi-Wan knows he'll do almost anything to get back the only things he has from his family.


	4. General - Grand Army of the Republic

Summary: Obi-Wan has only been on Tatooine for a month before his house is robbed. The thieves take the old wooden trunk where he'd placed Anakin's lightsaber and Ahsoka's Padawan beads. A Jedi shouldn't need attachments, but Obi-Wan knows he'll do almost anything to get back the only things he has from his family.

Notes: Thank you for all of your lovely comments! Obi-Wan and Numa in this chapter. As well as memories/thoughts of Obi-Wan & Anakin/Vader. This was originally going to be a Numa POV but has morphed into an Obi-Wan POV. Enjoy!

General in the Grand Army of the Republic

 _Ben._

He has always rather liked that name.

 _Ben. Ben Kenobi._

He prefers to leave the 'Kenobi' part behind him, but Owen has made that impossible, so here he is. Ben Kenobi. The crazy vagabond who has moved out to hovel in the middle of the Jundland Wastes, situated all the way at the edge of the Dune Sea.

No one lives out there.

'He won't last long,' the people at Dannar's Claim in the Pika Oasis, and even those as far away as Anchorhead, say sagely to their neighbors as they relax over a pint at the end of a long week's work.

Tatooine settlers are nothing if not optimistic.

Ben finds something to admire in their glum certainty that things can only get worse. Perhaps it's in the fact that they still find the strength to get up every morning to once more battle the inhospitable elements of this planet in order to just survive. Stubbornness, pure and simple. He wonders if that's where Ana— _he_ learned it from.

Ben hastily shies away from that thought – too soon – and thinks that he could use all the stubbornness he could find because there are mornings, most mornings in fact, where he's not even sure why he bothers to get up at all. The children are safer – he hasn't let Padmé, he hasn't let Ana— _him_ down – safer than they would ever be with him. He has already failed one gifted child, he doesn't have it in him to fail any more.

Anyway, he's Ben here. That's all he has to be. Just breathe in and out. Stay in the moment. He's here.

He's…buying a meiloorun. Apparently.

"Two for the price of one!" argues the ebullient Toydarian hawking his wares in a little canvas-covered stall at the edge of Mos Espa. Ben has no idea why he thought a trip to Mos Espa – as far away from the Lars' homestead as Bestine, the capital, is – would be a good idea today, but when he woke up this morning he'd looked around the bare sandstone walls of his small dwelling and realized he couldn't stand them. So, he'd taken his eopie and headed east.

And so here he is now. Examining a meiloorun that is at the end of its shelf life and is certainly not worth the exorbitant price the Toydarian is claiming for it. Still, after a moment he sighs and pays the aging creature, tucking the meilooruns away in his cloak.

"Thank you, thank you very much! You won't regret it," the Toydarian yells, flapping his tiny wings until he is at Ben's eye level and vigorously shaking his hand. Ben internally grimaces at the unwashed odor coming from the being, but he politely thanks him and heads on his way.

 _I wonder if this place has changed at all since…he was here._

He tries to push that thought away, a flash of gold out of the corner of his eyes making him turn his head as he thinks he sees Anakin's unruly curls, a vibrant, teasing male voice making him wonder how Anakin has found him all the way out here.

A landspeeder careens past at frankly unsafe speeds and as Ben dives out of the way he sees the custom-made modifications on its exhausts and he knows that Anakin would love to talk to the owner all about it…and maybe take it apart when she's not looking.

Ben feels sick. There are too many ghosts here. He doesn't know why he came.

Anakin Skywalker is dead. He only exists in the memories of his former master and in two small children he never lived to see.

And in the ruins of the Jedi Order, who took him from this planet…and failed. No, that was shifting the blame. It was Obi-Wan Kenobi who failed him. Somehow. He just…hadn't been enough. He hadn't been what Anakin needed.

Loud cursing in Huttese fills the air, and Ben realizes that he has wandered in into the middle of a congested thoroughfare while he has been lost in the past. "Echuta!" the dug screams at him.

Ben holds up both hands in a placating manner. "My apologies, friend," he says, before scurrying back towards the side of the road and out of the way of various vehicles which crowd Mos Espa. Time to return to the house, he thinks. There is nothing about this planet that he likes – not the heat, not the criminals who flee here, not the slavery which still runs rampant and Hutt-controlled, not the lack of rain or snow or any other weather but dry and burning…and he remembers Anakin, helpless on the ground from where Obi-Wan had shorn through his limbs with a lightsaber, writhing in agony as the flames caught him, burning through clothing and flesh, those beloved features blackening and peeling before the Jedi Master's eyes as the boy he'd raised, the man he'd loved screamed his hatred of Obi-Wan…

A wave of nausea takes him, and he fights it back, feeling dizzy and sick with horror and regret and grief and self-loathing.

…and not the memories.

But he is Ben now. Ben Kenobi. Obi-Wan died with Anakin.

Ben is late getting back to his…current dwelling. He senses no other presence in the wide expanse of the desert, so he is unwary as he climbs the stairs cut into the cliffside of his home. He has circled around to come up to his house from the Dune Sea, for the waves of sand look almost like an ocean under the moonlight, and the stars are magnificent out here.

It is only when he enters the main living area and sees the devastation that has been visited upon it in his absence, that his danger sense flares. The entire place has been ransacked, the meager food stores destroyed or taken, the bedding torn and cut to ribbons and…

Ben feels his heartrate pick up, his vision going spotty and a sense of numbness filling him as he realizes that _the chest is gone_.

The chest is gone. Small, wooden and ancient looking, it had been a gift to Qui-Gon from Master Dooku decades ago. When Qui-Gon died it passed to Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan has always placed his few belongings in it. These days it holds only Anakin's lightsaber and Ahsoka's Padawan beads. Obi-Wan always carries his own lightsaber with him, and he has hidden Qui-Gon's old green lightsaber in a secret compartment he's dug in the dwelling's walls, already having decided that one day the kyber crystal in it will pass to Luke, when the boy is ready to make his own lightsaber.

It's only been a month since his life ended, and yet he knows that he will never be able to destroy Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. Not even for Luke.

And now it's gone. And Ahsoka…Ahsoka, _their_ Padawan. He had been too late to help her; all he could find was her grave. But her Padawan beads had been in Anakin's room in the Temple, and he had taken them, treasured them, in memory of the bright, fierce, courageous girl who had grown into a wonderful young woman before his eyes.

He had failed her too, and now the only thing of hers he has left – the only thing of _Anakin's_ he has left – is gone.

He has no idea how he gets down the cliff – he suspects he jumps, and the Force cushions his fall – and he has no idea how he knows which way to go, but Obi-Wan senses the crystal in Anakin's lightsaber, senses which direction it's in, and he…runs.

The thieves haven't gone far. A caravan of battered old landcrawlers with bars on their windows is guarded by the dark green reptiles who seem to thrive in Tatooine's harsh environment. Rowdy, drunken singing carries over the sands towards Obi-Wan as he pauses behind an outcropping to catch his breath. The moonlight makes everything seem strange and misshapen, but to a Jedi that presents no hardship. He realizes that the only thing he has brought with him is his lightsaber, that he hasn't eaten anything all day, and that he has just run several miles at a pace which would have done a galaxy-renowned athlete proud.

He is getting too old for this sort of thing.

He also feels anger coloring the edges of his Force presence, filling the spaces in his vision. The only belongings of those he loved which he has left, and the Force couldn't even let him keep them. These…these _vile thieves_ have taken the only things he has to remember an entire life, to remember any happiness he once had.

How dare they.

He comes out of the darkness and he knows he must seem horrifying to them. A shape in a cloak, he probably looks like some sort of monster. The Force-enhanced scream of a krayt dragon – which he'd noticed seemed to scare the marauding Sand People – and the unearthly-glow of his lightsaber, coupled with a subtle Force suggestion blanketing the minds of these weak-willed beings and their own inebriation, sends them into panic-filled flailing.

One of them, a big, burly Trandoshan, holds Obi-Wan's wooden chest.

"I think you'll find," he says, his voice as cold and precise as cut glass, "that _that_ belongs to me."

The Trandoshan drops the chest and flees and Obi-Wan scoops up the wooden box, feeling absurdly, desperately relieved to have it back in his possession again. He turns to go, he's done here, when a little voice carries to him out of the darkness.

"Nera?"

Obi-Wan freezes, wondering if he's now hearing things. His eyes quickly scan his surroundings, taking in a half-dozen fleeing opponents, several abandoned landcrawlers, ten or so rough, unsavory types who have found their weapons and are closing in on him as he stands there trying to place the voice.

"Nera!" It's a joyful voice, childish, and filled with recognition.

 _Brother._

He thinks again of Anakin, of the words he shouted at him on the banks of a river of lava on Mustafar. But this voice is younger, the word Twi'leki, not Basic.

And then Obi-Wan finds her. Numa is older than when he last saw her, and she is certainly dirtier. She's dressed in skimpy rags which show off her childish body in ways that were extremely inappropriate, her lekku were tied with some type of crisscrossing ribbon – ornamentation – and there were chains around her wrists and ankles. She was behind the bars in one of the landcrawlers and there were dozens of other Twi'lek females, of all ages, crowded in there with her.

"Nera!" And it's a warning now, as the _slavers_ raise their weapons and open fire. Obi-Wan picks out two of them and knows they're Zygerrians, sees the electric whips they prefer to wield against even Jedi, but all he sees is Numa's little face pressed against the bars, the hope and faith in her big eyes.

And he sees red. He moves in a trance, feeling the Force flow through him as he strikes out at these…these monsters. He destroys weapons and breaks bones and even the Zygerrians' favored weapons are no match against the rage inside him.

Everything has been taken away, but he won't…. he _refuses_ to let any more harm come to Numa.

It's only her voice which breaks through the fog in his brain. "No, Nera, no!"

 _She must be ten cycles by now_ , he thinks, _somewhat analogous to six standard years old._ Ryloth's orbit around its star was faster than the standard calendar.

And he realizes that his lightsaber is at the throat of one of the Zygerrian's, as he holds her in place with the Force, and that he is very close to cleaving her head from her body.

Numa's concern, her concern for _him_ , is flowing into the Force, and the rest of the slavers are injured or unconscious around him. _She's an unarmed prisoner_ , Obi-Wan tells himself. _It's not the Jedi way._

"Do it," the Zygerrian woman spits at him, her golden eyes filled with fire and hatred. "You will never defeat us. We will just return."

Obi-Wan looks over at Numa and she's watching him with wide eyes, no fear just…trust. He's no longer a Jedi, no longer Obi-Wan Kenobi, but for a moment he wants to be. If only just for her. He closes the lightsaber and steps back but continues to hold the slaver up in the air with the Force.

"If you ever return here," he warns her, and considers his words. "There will be a reckoning," he says slowly, and he watches the way the woman's eyes widen, fear flickering at the edges of her Force presence as she realizes how deadly serious he is.

"Take your friends and go," he tells her, and then thinks no more of her as he frees the prisoners. Numa throws herself into his arms, her own thin little arms tight around his neck, and for a moment, just a single moment, as the Twi'leks converge around him in a happy babble of thanks and excitement, he is Obi-Wan Kenobi, General in the Grand Army of the Republic once more.

Notes: Sorry for the small amount of Numa in this. She was originally meant to be the main part of the chapter, but I got lost in Obi-Wan's grief and memories of Anakin (it's a problem how endlessly fascinated I am by their relationship, lol) and by the time she entered the story, it was nearing its end. Ah well. Let me know what you think of it anyway? I don't know, there was a theme to it, but then I kind of wandered off into another theme. I might edit it more later.

I always loved the line that Owen said to Luke, about how Obi-Wan died the same time as Luke's father, and so I tried to combine it with Obi-Wan's internal narrative in "Time of Death", where he says he was once a Jedi – how he didn't feel like a Jedi during his time on Tatooine – and that's how this chapter was born. Obi-Wan's dealing with all this anger and grief and self-recrimination and Numa – saving her, the good memories she brings back of the Clone Wars – is a way for him to gain a little balance back.

And yup, the Toydarian is Watto, if anyone got that reference. Yes, I know Numa never called _Obi-Wan_ 'Nera' in the show, but I feel like she associates him with the Clones, so it wouldn't be too far of a stretch.


	5. Heart of Kyber

Summary: Nash Raventhorn had been convinced that this would be an easy smuggling run, just drop off the cargo, get paid and leave. Until she realized that the smugglers she was running with were hauling kyber crystals. Then everything got a bit complicated.

Notes: Obi-Wan on Tatooine. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Corporal Istabith "Nash" Raventhorn, a bag full of kyber crystals and the nefarious plans of the Empire.

Heart of Kyber

Nash Raventhorn crawled through garbage, rotted meat and vegetables and even fecal matter and wondered, for the umpteenth time, just what had possessed her to do such a stupid thing.

There was a shout behind her – male voice, distinctly unfriendly – and she crawled faster, trying to keep the precious pack tied to her back up above the muck. _Why am I even bothering?_ She thought, disgusted with herself. She was disgusted even more with the sweltering heat of the sewers, clammy and fetid with steam rising up to escape out of the few drains and out into the frigid Tatooine night.

Force, she hated this planet. Sweltering by day and freezing by night, and over everything was the sand, itching and abrasive, the Hutt cartel, the newly-arrived Imperial presence, the corruption in the capital, and the constant passing through of the worst scum in the galaxy. Whoever actually wanted to live on this dust heap was crazy.

And she was crazier than all of them.

A blaster bolt singed the rusted metal of the sewer directly above her head and she swore viciously in Twi'leki – a former bunkmate on the _RSD-Tranquility_ had been Twi'leki and had taught her the best words before his untimely death from a Sep's tank.

"Alright, alright, hold your Hutts!" she yelled back, inching forward and bit more. If she'd read the maps right – admittedly a risky proposition, given that she'd read them while on the run – an access tunnel leading back up under the spaceport should be just up ahead. If she could reach it before she was shot by one of those lunatics, she could lose herself in the crowd milling about the cantinas.

"Just give us the crystals, Nash," Botwei called back, trying to sound wheedling but just sounding menacing. Nash hadn't liked him since they'd teamed up together several months ago. The Trandoshan had worked too long in the slave trade.

"Yeah, the Empire will never pay you for them," came the nasally voice of Grog, the bounty hunter from Onderon. "They only deal with us," he said self-importantly, and Nash snorted.

"Got a personal relationship with the Empire, do you Grog?" she scoffed, edging further along the tunnel and doubting they'd notice in the dark as long as she was quiet. Anyway, she knew they were trying to do the same thing. Yes, she inwardly rejoiced, there it was. Around the corner she could see a dim glow of light.

"Whatever the Empire wants kyber crystal for," she announced loudly, moving slightly faster, "it can't be good. I think they'll shoot you rather than pay you."

"Not if we hand them your corpse!" Botwei roared, but Nash was already gone, dropping down a way to splash into somewhat-cleaner water, dim moonlight filter through several grates, and running full-tilt towards the fan at the end of the tunnel. Blasterfire lit up the duracrete around her but Nash didn't even hesitate. A small crystal, barely a shard really, was clasped in her hand – had been since she'd rooted through the bag outside the ship and found them in there – and she felt it warming her gently.

She didn't even hesitate at the rotating blades whirling in opposite directions, just threw herself into them, closing her eyes and waiting for a sensation like knives slicing through her. The crystal warmed in her hand, wind passed before her face, a lock of hair was snipped cleanly off with a small 'whisk' sound and…. she was through.

She fell on her knees in the murky water, the shouts of her former companions echoing uselessly behind her. Then she was up again, climbing the ladder and bursting out under the stars of a Tatooine night.

Nash hadn't meant to end up in this situation. In fact, she was entirely sure that it was the Jedi's fault.

Even if he didn't know it.

She'd landed on Tatooine with Grog and Botwei – who, while not exactly upstanding beings, were far from the worst that she'd worked with. Trying to make a living out on the fringes of the Outer Rim meant doing anything that was asked of you, from smuggling and the odd bit of bounty hunting, to armed robbery and guard work for Hutts. That day they'd put in to Mos Eisley spaceport and waited for their contact. A simple smuggling run.

While they'd waited, Nash had gone off to re-stock their supplies of food and bacta and blaster carbons.

That's when she'd seen him. The Jedi.

She'd come out of one of the shops, bag full of fresh fruit which Grog had a weird preference for, and looked across the dusty, burning-hot street towards where a hooded and cloaked human man was descending from an Eoopie. A simple, silver cylinder swung at his waist, a simple, tanned-colored tunic covered his torso and thighs, and his boots were worn and practical. She would have known that garb, that weapon, anywhere.

He must have felt her gaze, sensed her recognition in the Force, for he looked up, keen blue eyes gazing into her own with the sudden strike of a lightning bolt. _Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi_.

For a long moment they'd stood motionless, across from one another. The Jedi were being hunted, Nash knew. There was a bounty on all of them, and the greatest bounty by far was on Kenobi. Whispers of a dark menace who had a grudge against Kenobi and would pay for any information had long made their way to the fringe. Nash wondered if he knew.

Her fingers twitched, and she had to forcibly refrain herself from saluting. Then the Jedi bowed to her and turned away, vanishing around one of the squat sandstone buildings. It was only after he was gone that she realized she had never even considered calling the pair of stormtroopers loitering half-way down the street over or attempting to collect the bounty herself.

She cursed herself for her foolishness. She owed the Jedi no loyalty any longer. Any Jedi. She'd resolutely put him out of her mind and returned back to her companions.

Too early, it seemed, for she found them deep in negotiation with a man who made Nash's skin crawl and a bag of kyber crystals being passed to him.

Nash found who she was looking for in one of the many cantina's that lined the spaceport. She wondered if he had been waiting for her; it wouldn't surprise her with Jedi.

The Jedi sat at one of the tables along the wall, half in shadow and his face obscured by his hood until only his ginger-colored beard showed. He nursed a drink which she was absolutely certain was not alcoholic.

She wanted to slide into the bench opposite him, cool and in control, but she found herself hovering just above his slightly-hunched form, heart hammering nervous and hating herself for being weak. The Jedi

The man looked up and she caught of flash of piercing blue-grey eyes in a tanned face. His stare was intense, and it took all of Nash's willpower to not look away.

His face was kind, she realized.

"Can I help you…?" he paused politely, waiting for her to introduce herself, she realized and resolutely tried to dredge up some manners from somewhere. Her father might have been a bit of a scrum rat, but her mother had been properly educated.

"Nash," she said and waited for him to wave her to the seat across from him before she slid in. She clutched the bag tightly to her chest. He didn't say anything for a moment and she studied his face in the flickering, golden light placed at the center of their table.

He looked older, and weary in a way that had nothing to do with a current lack of sleep, than when she had seen him last. Of course, he wouldn't remember her. A small curl of resentment bloomed in her and she sat up to meet his incisive gaze. "I am Ben," he said. His voice was the same though, precise and elegant, and she could almost hear echoes from the past rise up around him as he spoke.

She couldn't hide her disbelieving stare. "Of course, you are," she murmured. As if a new name could hide the fact that Jedi High General and Master Obi-Wan Kenobi sat across from her in a seedy, little cantina on a desolate, forgotten planet in the Outer Rim.

She had thought the Jedi were all gone.

A hint of amusement crossed those bright eyes and he leaned back a bit, pushing his hood off and surveying her carefully. "What can I do for you, Nash?"

Nash stared at him for a moment, debating internally with herself, before she unhooked the pouch from over her shoulder and threw it, none too gently, into the center of the table. "I've brought something for you."

The Jedi didn't even look down at them, his eyes still watching her, but he reached out a hand and brushed them lightly over the kyber crystals peeking through the flaps in Nash's satchel. She could have sworn, she almost believed, she could hear a faint hum. Perhaps he was soothing them? She wouldn't blame him for it, the crystals had had a rough time of it if Grog and Botwei stole them from somewhere.

"Why?" he asked simply, and Nash silently cursed him and all his kind. 'Why' was exactly the question she didn't want to answer. She debated getting up and simply walking out – her job was done after all – but something in his eyes, patience she thought, said that he would be a good listener and Nash wasn't entirely sure of her motives herself. So all she did was shift restlessly in her seat and think about the 'why.'

"My mother was from Alderaan. She had the Force, but her parents didn't want to give her up to train at the Temple. When she was old enough she went to Jedha and became a Guardian of the Whills." She rolled her eyes. No accounting for taste, she supposed. "Until she met my father – a navigator on a spice freighter – and they ran off together."

"Love is a strange and powerful thing," the Jedi agreed, the hint of a forlorn and almost self-deprecating smile flitting across his lips for a moment.

"Yeah, well, whatever. My father thought she was crazy, all that spiritual nonsense, and I've never had much use for it neither." She took a long gulp from her tankard and waved the bartender over to refill it. She definitely needed alcohol to get through this conversation. "All I've seen of the Force is the pain it brings to those who follow it," she spat, no longer caring if she sounded bitter.

The Jedi said nothing, but Nash could feel his calm, grey-blue eyes watching her – simply waiting for her to be ready. She really hated that about Jedi. She refused to look up at him and had to speak around the sudden lump in her throat, which she hated even more. "Anyway, my mother used to tell me that kyber crystals were what powered the Jedi's lightsabers." She could remember her mother's musical voice even now, the wonder in it as she held the clear stones and her little daughter watched them turn blue and green in her hands. "She could hear them singing. She said they were…alive somehow." She cleared her throat, aiming for brusque and aware she wasn't quite making it. "Anyway, it didn't seem right, letting those people just steal them and sell them to the Empire."

Nash had thought she was as Force-blind as they come – a fact she'd thought her mother might have been disappointed in – but when she'd touched those gently shimmering rocks they felt warm in her hand, like the touch of an old friend.

And she couldn't just leave them there.

"So you brought them to me?" the Jedi asked, and he sounded genuinely surprised, his refined voice with its Coruscanti accent lilting upwards. She'd heard him speak on the HoloNet several times, footage taken in the midst of a battle and not meant for public viewing and had been struck by how collected he was under fire. That he retained that now, even after the end of his Order, made her feel something she couldn't describe.

"I recognized you," she admitted, reluctance tugging at her and making the words come out unwillingly.

She had no desire to get mixed up in Jedi affairs once more. She could still hear the blaster fire, the screams of the dead and dying, see the flash of lightsabers. Too many had been killed, and for what? It seemed to Nash that everyone had lost in the end. Everyone except Palpatine.

"You're a veteran," the Jedi said. "You fought in the Clone Wars."

She took a large gulp then, almost gagging on it. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, knowing she was checking out the exits once more and unable to help herself. The Empire wasn't exactly keen on veterans from the recent conflict and she wanted to stay off their radar.

"Corporal Istabith Raventhorn," she said, stiffly, suppressing the frankly ridiculous urge to stand up and salute him as she gave her rank. It's just that she'd heard stories of Kenobi. Of Kenobi and Skywalker. The Team.

He nodded. "Outer Rim sieges?" he probed gently. The conflict had been the worst there, whole systems ravaged by wave after wave of invasion and conflict.

"I served in the 41st Elite Corps, under Senior Jedi General Luminara Unduli," she said, and took a huge gulp from her tankard again. She slammed the tankard back onto the table angrily and swiped a finger through the perspiration condensing on the surface. "General Unduli promoted recruitment among Republic citizens. She believed that a war for freedom shouldn't be fought by men who didn't even have basic rights and were created in a test tube by a corrupt elite," she spat accusingly.

The Jedi raised an eyebrow at her. She wondered if he was chiding her or simply surprised, and found she was too angry to care. She'd fought beside the clones for three years and she knew in her bones that what had happened to them, what was _done_ to them, was monstrous.

Obi-Wan didn't know what to make of the woman sitting across from him. She was angry and hurt, trying to reach out but at the same time so wary of everyone and everything that she lashed out anytime he made a move to connect.

The Jedi Master could see that the war still haunted this woman – and probably always would – but that wasn't unusual. _War leaves scars_ , he remembered reading somewhere. An ancient Jedi text from a long-dead master named Rancion, _and not all scars are visible._

Guilt and grief and rage and a sense of confusion poured off the woman, leaving a bitter tang in the Force. She didn't seem to know what she wanted, and Obi-Wan had no idea how to help her. But he _wanted_ to help her. And she was here, sitting across from him, which meant that some part of her was looking for something.

Obi-Wan thought of how Corporal Raventhorn spoke of Luminara.

"She was right," Obi-Wan said mildly, watching as those hard, blue eyes shot up to meet his. His lips quirked ruefully, and he shrugged. "Then again, she usually was."

Nash had _liked_ General Unduli. She hadn't thought she would. She'd taken one look at the Miralan woman, with her cool composure and that ridiculous dress she wore and decided that the other woman just wasn't cut out to lead soldiers into battle. Maybe she would be good at meditating in a fancy temple somewhere, or mingling with aristocrats in the Senate, but she couldn't hack it amid the blood and mud, the death and the pain and the fear of war.

Boy had she been wrong.

General Unduli was fierce and unstoppable, in that self-contained, _polite_ way Jedi all seemed to be, and her skills on the battlefield were simply amazing. She was the first to attack and the last to retreat, and her battle tactics were excellent. Even Nash, who was more of a 'follow orders' type of person, and who wouldn't know how to spot the course a battle was taking if someone spelled it out for her, could see that.

And General Unduli had been kind. She'd cared about those who fought beside her. She'd even cared about Nash – talked to her about Jedha, and what she knew of the Guardians of the Whills, and even about being a freighter pilot – despite the fact that Nash had been as far down the chain of military command as it was almost possible to be.

"Were you there on Kashhyyk?" The Jedi asked, and Nash didn't have to ask what he was referring to.

Anger flared in her, bright and furious and painful, and she had no idea if she was angrier at herself, for failing to _stop_ what happened, or at him for failing to _see_ that it would happen.

 _She_ wasn't the brilliant tactician amongst the pair of them. "Yeah, I was there," she all-but spat, and the alcohol tasted sour in her mouth and now churned heavily in her stomach. She still saw the dead wookiees, General Unduli's small form being led away in chains, in her dreams.

"I tried to get them to see reason and I was shot three times by men I thought of as my brothers. I should have died. I'm still not sure why I didn't."

She'd been de-commissioned from the Army while still unconscious, summarily discharged and sent out into the galaxy with a piece of paper and two cycles backpay. She'd been desperate enough, and jaded enough, to take the first job she was offered, and she'd never looked back since.

The Jedi had failed, or the Force had failed _them_. The Republic she'd fought for had been a lie, corrupt and rotten to its core. What did it matter what she did, then?

The Jedi didn't say he was sorry for what had happened to her, though she could see the compassion in his eyes. "Thank you," he said quietly, for the crystals or the story or the simple companionship of a fellow veteran, she did not know. "The crystal you hold," he said, eyes flitting down to where Nash's hand was hidden in her lap under the table, clasped tightly around the small shard of kyber she'd held ever since this day turned to bantha poodo.

Her heart pounded as she wondered whether he would demand she hand it over too. She was no Jedi after all.

But General Kenobi merely smiled. "It has chosen you," he said. "It sings in your company."

"I can't hear it," Nash whispered, but the shard was warm against her skin and she felt something lighten in her at the Jedi's words. She wanted to say 'thank you' but the words got stuck in her throat. She thought he knew anyway.

The Jedi stood up, the pouch of kyber crystals held loosely in his hand. He pulled his hood up and made to walk away from the table, out the door, and out of Nash's life forever. But then he paused beside her, raised a hand and placed it gently on her shoulder. "The strongest stars," he told her, "have hearts of kyber."

Her mother had said that to her once, the day she'd signed up for the Grand Army of the Republic and shipped out under General Unduli's command. Mirarala Raventhorn hadn't talked much about the Force after Nash's father died, but she'd placed a warm hand on Nash's cheek that day and looked almost proud when she'd seen her daughter off.

Nash had never forgotten her words. And now a Jedi Master said them to her again, when she had sunk lower than even she'd thought she'd go – a life of crime and darkness, to mirror the one the Clone Wars had become.

"If you're looking for a new path, little one," he said, "you might want to talk to Bail Organa. Tell him that Ben of the Twin Suns sent you. He might have a proposition to offer you."

"Might?" she asked, barely above a whisper, not sure if she wanted to be set on a new path by a Jedi. Not sure if she deserved to be.

"It's your choice," he said, and then he was gone.

Nash looked after his retreating back, the worn, plain fabric of his Jedi cloak, the strong stride of a soldier, and remembered the wisdom in those eyes. Hard-earned wisdom. A breeze of cool air blew through the sweltering cantina as he exited. After a moment the bartender wandered over to collect her tankards.

"Old Ben Kenobi talking your ear off?" he asked. The way he moved, the cautious way he scanned his surrounding, convinced Nash he'd seen his fair share of combat as well. He'd obviously never seen a Jedi though, or he'd seen one only from a distance, because anyone who knew them at all could tell that Ben Kenobi was a Jedi.

She shrugged noncommittally.

The bartender went on though, seemingly unable to help himself. "'The Wizard of the Wastes,' they've taken to calling him around here." He snorted to express his opinion about that. "Crazy is what he is. No sane person would live all the way out in the Jundland Wastes. They say the very air talks to him and Tuskens avoid him." He shook his grizzled head in scornful wonder.

Nash felt her lips quirk. Yup, definitely a Jedi. She drained the last of her tankard and handed it to him along with a light tip. "Maybe we could use a bit more 'crazy'," she told him, before walking out into the night.

Maybe… _just_ maybe, she'd catch a freighter to Alderaan someday, and see what path the Jedi offered her.

End Notes: A small reference to Obi-Wan's love for Anakin in there. Nash reminds me a bit of Anakin as well – unable to get off a bad path and silently reaching out, even though she has no idea that she is, to Obi-Wan.

Next up, Quinlan Vos misses Obi-Wan and Master Yoda at the Jedi Temple by mere hours. Now stuck on Coruscant in the wake of Order 66 and the declaration of the Empire, he has to decide what he should do in a galaxy taken over by the Sith.


	6. Those Fallen to Darkness

Summary: Quinlan Vos misses Obi-Wan and Master Yoda at the Jedi Temple by mere hours. Now stuck on Coruscant in the wake of Order 66 and the declaration of the Empire, he has to decide what he should do in a galaxy taken over by the Sith.

Notes: What happened to Quinlan Vos after Order 66? New canon hints that he's still alive – see Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith comics – and so I figured I'd have a go at showing what he was up to.

Those Fallen to Darkness

Quinlan Vos, hooded, cloaked, and avoiding the security cameras like nobody's business, knelt outside the Jedi Temple and touched the helmet of a dead clone trooper.

 _501_ _st_ , he thought, noting the distinctive blue markings. _Skywalker's unit._

Blaster fire seared this place the Jedi Master had always called home and the stench of death hung in the air, the echoes of children crying out in fear resounded in the Force.

Quinlan gleaned nothing from the armor through the Force, but he noticed that all the Clones had been cut down by the blade of a lightsaber. Or more than one person wielding a lightsaber.

At least one Jedi had wanted to get into the Temple very badly indeed.

Quinlan reached over and touched a piece of a blaster rifle which had been cleaved in two.

 _Fear. Hatred. Confusion._

 _An overwhelming, all-consuming need to kill Jedi._

 _The green flash of Master Yoda's lightsaber as it sliced cleanly through a clone trooper's neck._

 _Obi-Wan's face, stern and resolute, as he spared no one._

Quinlan pulled away with a gasp. Something terrible had happened here. Something monstrous.

He took the steps two at a time, no longer caring about cameras or security footage or Palpatine's infernal new Empire. Kenobi and Yoda could still be here.

He burst through the front doors knowing and dreading what he would see and found…nothing.

The light-filled hallways and graceful pillars and walkways were marred by blaster fire, the scent of ozone and burned flesh still hung in the air, but there were no bodies of brothers and sisters to haunt his memories.

Quinlan paused to catch his breath and calm the frantic beating of his heart. It took more courage than he wanted to admit to reach out and touch a crumpled Jedi robe, which had gotten lost under a bench.

A flash memory came to him then _…the girl's tiny hands clutching a lightsaber slippery with sweat…the pain of her body as it was riddled with plasma from a clone's rifle…gentle hands lifting her body up as the cloak fell away – Kenobi's hands – and carrying her small body down the hall…_

Quinlan dropped the cloak as though scalded, breathing hard and still feeling the pain of multiple burns across his body, memory though it was. He glanced around once more at the empty, echoing hallways. Obi-Wan and Master Yoda must have burned all the bodies, must have moved every single one of their fallen brothers and sisters and given them a proper – if hurried – farewell.

He didn't want to think about what either of his friends had been feeling in those moments. He felt stifled by death and grief and loss in this place that had once meant home and love and peace. Standing in the emptiness, he tried to think of what he should do – something, _anything_ – to honor those who had died here; Clone and Jedi alike.

He remembered a song – low and crooning, almost haunting – which Asajj had hummed over the body of a fallen Nightsister. _She has become a part of the dance now_ , she'd told him as she closed the woman's unseeing eyes. She glanced up to the stars above them then, and Vos had understood her meaning.

He wished she was here with him now. If Ventress was anything, she was a survivor. She would know how to make sense of all this. She would know what to do next.

Still, he stood in that strange, lifeless, echoing mausoleum which had once been filled with light and he hummed a hymn to the dead. _You are all part of the dance now_ , he thought, _and one day I'll dance with you._

But not yet. And he went to find the security footage.

The security tapes had all been erased.

Quinlan stood staring at the static that played instead of any recording. _Who had erased them? And why?_

Surely not Palpatine. His disfigured form and sickly yellow eyes when he'd announced the Jedi attempt on his life and the formation of a Galactic Empire – splashed all over the HoloNet like he was some sort of celebrity – had told Vos everything he needed to know about the Sith Lord they had been looking for, the start of the Clone Wars, and who had given the order to hunt down and murder his entire family.

Still didn't explain the security tapes though.

'Always two there are,' Master Yoda had said, with regards to the Sith. 'A Master and an Apprentice.'

 _The apprentice had been Dooku_ , Quin reminded himself, feeling a chill run down his spine and feeling disgusted at his own timidity.

 _Who became the apprentice after Dooku's death_? his mind probed without his consent.

As he looked around at the destruction of his home – the blaster fire of the 501st, the marks on the walls which could only come from lightsaber combat – the hollow, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that more than likely, a brother or sister had fallen to the Dark Side.

It would be just like Kenobi to erase the tapes of their deeds before he went to try and save – or stop – them. The man was too honorable for his own good.

The blinking light of the Temple's emergency beacon caught his attention and he flicked it on. A ghostly blue figure swam into view and Quin felt a small, grim feeling of satisfaction as Obi-Wan's haggard face and sad eyes appeared.

 _This is Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. I regret to inform you that both the Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen…_

When the message was finished, Vos left the Temple and went to stand on the main steps. Late afternoon sunlight streamed orange and red across the stone of the Temple and glittered like fire off the windows of innumerable buildings.

The silence that encase the Temple was ominous and Vos noticed how the traffic had been re-routed much further away from the Temple than it had ever been before.

All of Coruscant, it seemed, was looking the other way from what had happened to the Jedi.

Quinlan Vos, who had once been a Jedi Master and was…something else now…still didn't know what to do next. Kenobi's last instructions were vague, unhelpful, and he had missed both him and Master Yoda by enough time that he'd never pick up their trail again.

Being a Jedi, even a terrible one like him, was a death sentence in a galaxy run by the Sith. Asajj was long dead and Aayla, his wonderful, brave former Padawan – he had felt her death like a dozen knives stabbing him all at once.

Quin honestly didn't know what to do next.

He'd never been much of a joiner, never cared for politics or causes – the Jedi had been all he'd ever needed. How were they all gone, and he was still here? The prodigal son with nowhere to return to.

 _And where in the blazes was Kenobi?_

He stood at the edge of the steps, the wind whipping around him, and frowned at the horizon as he tried to run through a list of anyone else who might still be alive.

A police droid eventually entered Temple air space and headed for him, no doubt thinking him a simple trespasser in a restricted zone. When it saw the lightsaber on his belt though, it drew the baster recent regulations permitted it to carry, and aimed to kill. Vos dispatched it easily, the glowing green blade humming in his hands now the only constant in a galaxy turned upside-down.

Quinlan stalked up to the police droid's idling hoverbike and planted himself squarely before the holorecorder installed just beneath the handlebars. A light on the side flashed red and he had no doubt alarms were going off like mad back at Headquarters.

 _Good._

He didn't want Palpatine sitting too comfortably on that throne of his.

He smirked for the 'recorder and knew his face looked vicious. He was no Anakin Skywalker, winner of Coruscant's _Most Eligible Bachelor_ aware for three years running.

"Good evening, _Chancellor_ ," he said, his gravelly voice sounding more menacing than usual due to three days without food and very little drink or sleep.

"I see you've been busy trying to destroy my family. And I know you think you've won. But one day a Jedi will take back everything you stole." He turned away, paused, and then turned back to grin at the holorecorder. It wasn't a pleasant expression.

"Oh, by the way, Kenobi and Yoda are still out there. Somewhere. _I_ have no idea where…but if I were _you_ , I'd be worried about this."

He smiled wider until he barred his teeth, ignited his lightsaber, and sliced the 'recorder in half.

As sirens wailed and lights from patrol speeders swarmed towards the Temple, Vos vanished into Coruscant's lower levels. The smart thing to do would be to leave the planet immediately but the police droid had given him an idea.

And he'd bet money old Palpatine would never see it coming.

Barriss Offee had spent more days than she could count staring at bare walls, which were crisscrossed by energy fields strong enough to hold a Jedi.

Well, former Jedi anyway.

She'd forfeited any right to that honored title when she'd bombed the Jedi Temple. And when she'd framed Ahsoka for it.

She'd been in prison ever since, banned from the Order and placed in solitary confinement by the Republic – they had wanted to execute her. She could no longer remember why she'd thought it a good idea to blow up her home, although that tangle of fear and pain at all those senseless deaths, misapprehension and disgust over the never-ending and escalating war, hovered in the background of her mind in a discordant buzz.

All she could see now though was Ahsoka's face when the Temple Guards brought Barriss into the Courtroom to confess her crimes. Ahsoka – who had been her closest friend. The pain in her big blue eyes had been more than Barriss could look at, even as twisted as she had been back then. But the devastation in Ahsoka's Force presence was what had hit her like a punch to the gut.

Master Luminara later told her that Ahsoka left the Order, left even Master Kenobi and Jedi Skywalker, and struck out on her own.

Barriss wondered where Ahsoka was now. If she was alright. And if she ever thought on Barriss with anything except pain and betrayal.

Despite the Order casting her out, Master Luminara came every week to sit outside Barriss' cell – turned opaque for her visits – and spoke to her in that voice Barriss had once loved. She had spat hateful words at her those first few months and Master Luminara seemed sad and distant, but gradually she'd listened in silence to her former master's news from the front and stories of life at the Temple. It brought a strange sort of comfort to know she hadn't been forgotten.

And when Master Luminara was off planet, Master Yoda himself came. Sometimes he told her fantastic tales of things he'd seen in his youth, but sometimes he would gentry prod her to talk about what she was feeling. Barriss never did though. At first, she was too angry and then she was too ashamed.

But Master Luminara hadn't come this week. And neither had anyone else.

What was more worrying to Barriss though, was that a couple days ago she had felt a disturbance even through the darkness which suffused the Force and dulled her senses to almost non-existence. It was as though thousands of lights she had never noticed before, flared supernova before vanishing into darkness all at once.

And after their passing the darkness in the Force grew.

Barriss' bond with Master Luminara had been severed, first due to her Fall and then upon order by the Jedi Council, but she tried to reach out to her Master anyway…

…and flinched back in horror at the wall of malevolent evil she encountered, blocker her from Mater Luminara's cool, clean presence. She hadn't tried again after that. Whether Master Luminara was still alive or dead, Barriss couldn't reach her.

Now she stared at the entrance to her cell, patiently waiting. If the Jedi were gone, someone would remember her eventually. And they would come to kill her too.

The buzzing red energy beams around her cell flickered ominously and then flickered out, leaving a deafening silence. Footsteps pounded in the hall, shouts coming as she suspected that the locks failed, and the prisoners were finding themselves free.

A hiss of air as the lock depressed and the transparisteel door slid upwards. A shadow loomed outside her cell – tall, male, humanoid – and she felt menace, both dark and light, in the Force. She raised her eyes to meet his. At least she could try to die like a Jedi.

Jedi Master Quinlan Vos looked back at her. His tawny eyes were amused and wary and relieved all at once. "Hey, kid," he said, arms crossed and showing the strength in his arms. His already wild appearance was more disheveled than usual, and his eyes had a shadow behind them.

"What happened, Master?" she asked.

He grimaced. "The Sith. No one's left. The Order's gone…and Palpatine will come for you sooner or later. Once he remembers you."

Barriss stood up. "Why come to save me then?" She didn't move towards him. She'd heard all about his own Fall to the Dark Side. He had been forgiven, taken back, but if the Sith had won, why was he still alive? And his presence in the Force felt darker than she was comfortable with.

"I liked Luminara," Vos said simply. "She was always kind to me, always respectful and understanding. She didn't deserve what happened. None of them did. And she loved you. The least I owe her is to give you a second chance. Everyone deserves one of those." His grin was lopsided and strangely boyish, like he had stuck his hand in the cookie jar and gotten caught.

Barriss felt surprise flow through her. She'd never thought the Dark Side a laughing matter.

"A chance to do what?" Her hands were clenched tightly together. If he tried to take her to Palpatine – _who was in league with the Sith? Who was a Sith?_ – she would fight him.

"To choose." Vos uncrossed his arms, stepped back from the cell door and swept his hand out. "You could wait for Palpatine and join his new little Empire. Or you could come with me." He shrugged and looked uncomfortable. "And I guess we'll both try and figure out how to be Jedi again."

He didn't feel false in the Force.

Barriss thought about her options and gradually began to see a new path before her, clearer than anything she had seen in years. She nodded to him and stepped out of the cell. "We'll find whoever's left," she said. "That will be the first step."

She wondered how long redemption would take.

'The first step is always the hardest,' Master Luminara's voice came back to her.

Well, Barriss was going to find out.

End Notes: Barriss took over the story at the end. A bit of redemption in the wake of the Dark Side's victory. Chirrut and Baze are up next, and Jedha and some kyber crystals. We'll find out where Vos and Barriss ended up as well!


End file.
